Club volleyball schedules BGSU tournament to prepare for April's national tournament

Women's club volleyball will not compete again until March. 24 at Bowling Green after starting the winter season on back-to-back weekends.

Just 11 days later, the team will be in Dallas competing in the 2013 NCFV Collegiate Club Volleyball Championships.

The A-team will go seven weeks between tournaments, but Vice President Alyssa Ulrich says the team has a plan to make sure it's ready.

“We’re mostly looking to do a lot harder practices, more fast-paced, game-type scenarios,” Ulrich said. “That way we get prepared enough for the higher level players.”

More upbeat practices focusing on cardio exercise will also help build up some of the endurance that Ulrich said the team needs.

““I know one of our biggest weaknesses at tournaments is that we get tired,” Ulrich said. “(At) Nationals, it’s going to be all day playing. We can’t afford to get tired.”

The tournament at BGSU in March, which is the only other tournament the A team will play in, will be a gauge of how successful the team will be in Dallas.

While there were attempts to bring a tournament to CMU, there were not enough teams willing to play on the same date to host a tournament.

Only the B-team will be traveling to this weekend’s tournament at DePaul University.

The team found success in the silver bracket of both tournaments so far this year. It won the silver bracket at Michigan Jan. 26 and lost to BGSU in the silver bracket of the Michigan State tournament, placing them 10th out of the 15 teams.

The silver bracket is separated from the gold, after competing against the rest of the silver bracket the top teams compete with the top teams from the gold side.

CMU found its success against the silver bracket, but struggled when it came to facing the gold bracket teams.

“We would have wanted more, obviously, but I don’t think we were upset with our results,” Ulrich said. “However, we weren’t happy with them at the same time. We were more or less content.”

While many of the girls have experience playing in the National tournament, the team rotation had to be adjusted due to an injury to outside hitter Amber Aldrich.

“At the beginning of the year, we had a pretty serious injury with our outside,” Ulrich said. “(Aldrich) went up for a block and she tore her ACL.”

The whole team has had to play together in Aldrich's absence, although Ulrich says there isn't a stand out player on the team.

“We really don’t have an all-star on the team, just because it is club and you can’t really pick out somebody," Ulrich said. "We’re getting to know each other a lot better and play with each other a lot better ... which is nice. We’re excelling as we wanted to, so that’s exciting.”

The team will have the entire week off for Spring Break and will restart two weeks before the BGSU tournament.